BusinessLife Spotlight: Dave Reynolds

This week, we want to put the spotlight on our friend and BusinessLife client Dave Reynolds. As a University of Wisconsin-Madison grad, Dave grew up in Madison but moved to South Florida about eight years ago to initially work in the hedge fund space for capital raising. Having found success in that realm, Dave went on to run a successful golf business where he provided bookings for golf clubs.

Currently, he has the role of leading business development with a financial services firm while taking on a new chapter of his life to go into stand-up comedy. In the last six months, Dave has found satisfaction in his new endeavor as a way to branch out and work on his public speaking skills with his stand-up comedic act.

Working with Peter

Dave met Peter about 5 or 6 years ago as he began to feel the desire to become something more than just a business developer and a financial expert. Since working with Peter, Dave has been thriving in both his business and his life outside of his entrepreneurial endeavors.

As Dave’s coach, Peter has provided a lot of value to Dave’s personal development. Peter strategized business and individual objectives for Dave and effectively coached him to progress in his company. But most of all, Peter has become an impactful friend who has helped Dave forge a new path to a meaningful life.

Focusing on his career

In his role as entrepreneur and the owner of a golf reservations business, Dave faced difficulties and felt that he had plateaued in his business. Peter helped Dave build a practical plan for his company, and they worked pretty intensely for the next couple of years once they began their coaching relationship. With Peter’s encouragement and strategic involvement, Dave’s golf business took off, eventually booking 20,000 rounds of golf for clients.

Dave moved out of the golf business after two years. He was also juggling his involvement with the Palm Beach Wisconsin Alumni Club, which he had chosen to run and build up. Under Dave’s leadership, club’s most prominent achievements include starting up an alumni scholarship that has awarded approximately $20,000 of financial assistance to the local public and private high school students attending their first year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Success in the business world had been a significant accomplishment for Dave, but in the recent year, Dave felt a passion for stepping out of his comfort zone. He started taking improv comedy classes about six months ago, and has found it to be a lot of fun. In the efforts of becoming better at public speaking, Dave found a new niche that he is enjoying very much outside of his entrepreneurial endeavors.

What began as a few classes taken at the Palm Beach Improv has grown into a new found passion of Dave’s. He has become very involved and excited about this new skill set in his life, and has taken few acting classes at local theaters as well. Dave has organized a few comedy events, as well as performing at local activities in the area.

Dave looks forward to the new opportunities for this hobby in the new year. It has been a great creative outlet for him as a way to stretch out his mind. To top it all off, Dave has built a network of people with opportunities knocking at his door to speak in front of groups of people.

New capabilities from coaching

Dave says that Peter had a considerable influence on the new abilities and successes he has in his business and personal life. Peter has helped him in the areas of time management and learning to identify and express his core values as a part of his business and life. For example, one such area is team building. In learning how to put together and build teams, Dave can now manage team communication much more effectively than he ever had before.

Another skill set Peter taught was to formalize an agenda as a way to facilitate communication. It made running meetings to help the business progress much more successful. With Peter’s help, Dave has grown his strength as a communicator and a leader in the community.

Looking forward

There are a lot of opportunities to look forward to for Dave, as he continues to build out his business in his financial firm. Dave confirms that he will also continue to pursue his stand-up comedy locally and to eventually further branch out.

Despite not knowing what the future has in store for him, he is confident that his exploration into entrepreneurial pursuits will be fruitful with Peter’s help.